Episode One: The Laws Have Changed
by this-tornado
Summary: Things started out as a perfectly normal day for university student Catherine Davies, but everything changes when she runs into a rather mysterious stranger. Now, its up to her to decide exactly how much change she's willing to put up with.
1. 1: The Faultline

"Are you _really_ going to make me go grab another one?" She protested, lounging half off her chair for lack of anything better to do.

He looked up at her from half-underneath the monstrous projector, with that half-sarcastic half-amused look that made her weak at the knees, and nodded. "If you couldn't tell, I'm a little tied up at moment." He paused a second, as though considering getting it himself, but made one of those mock-sad faces had her twisting in her seat regardless. "Please?"

"Fiine," She rolled her eyes, though as delicately and non-threateningly as she could, even if she wasn't sure if he was watching her. It certainly wasn't _his_ fault the projector had decided to conk out right before a showing, meaning that they were spending the better part of an evening trying to fix the damned thing before they got too off schedule. It also meant that they were only ones in the building, the only ones running about in little circles running damage control.

Of course, the repair job had technically only needed him (there certainly wasn't room for two under the projector), but she'd been signed up to help him screen the film, and had fluttered her way into spending those extra hours handing him tools – always the one for the ulterior motive, she was. But if she had to go down another three flights of stairs, to grab him a different size wrench or whatever he needed at the moment, she was seriously considering making him fix it by himself.

Getting up with a long-suffering sort of sigh, she tossed her hair for good measure, just in case, and wound her way through the claustrophobically narrow hallway out of the booth.

Now that she wasn't quite as distracted, it was starting to dawn on her how very creepy theater booths really were. Strips of old-school film hung from the shelving, fluttering despite the lack of wind, great silver platters set up to spin the film slowly turning on their own, silently practicing the dance that brought the moving pictures to the screen. Out of the booth itself, the hallway was dark and narrow, badly paneled and chipping, just the sort of setting she could see the latest slash-fest. In fact, she was surprised that there weren't more set up in these sorts of hallways – it certainly put the hairs up on the back of her neck, put her ever so slightly on the edge, uneasy, uncomfortable. It didn't help that they were the only ones on that floor, probably the only ones in the building – it was a Saturday early evening, after all, just enough to get dark this time of year. A school building was hardly the sort of place that students wanted to hang at that time of night, of course, and the scheduled showing wasn't for at least another two hours.

Her feet made soft plodding sounds as she traipsed down the three flights of stairs to the maintenance closets, echoing slightly in the silence. As nonchalantly as possible, she hummed a little to herself, just to break that awful lack of sound. It would take a lot more than just an empty building to make her admit that she was a little freaked out, to admit that she wasn't totally ok with this level of creepy, but that wasn't going to happen, especially not in front of him.

Shoving aside mops and brooms, she rummaged about the cabinet for the specific size of whatever he'd needed, carefully settling herself so that her back wasn't to the doorway. If there was anything creepier than an empty building, it was that building's basement. As much as she knew better, really knew that the odds of something happening to her were astronomically low, she couldn't help but stay a bit on edge anyway.

Several times, she thought she heard some odd sort of buzzing, towards the outside doors, but she ignored that. Nothing threatening made buzzing sounds; that was silly. Now, footsteps, those she would have paid attention to.

Feeling a little silly for having been so nervous, she headed back upstairs. What was wrong with her today? Usually this wasn't the sort of thing that bothered her (she was a horror-movie kind of girl, the one who got to laugh at the ones who were scared, never the one who _was _scared), but there was just something about today – she'd been off all day, hadn't quite felt right. Like she was picking up something she didn't know she could pick up, some signal.

No, she dropped that line of thought, feeling extra silly. There were no hidden signals for her to pick up, that was just stupid. She'd probably psyched herself out or something. No big deal.

But it was that same uneasy feeling that had her pausing outside the booth door; had her taking a moment to think about it before she laid her hand on the doorknob. What _was_ it with her today? She knew nothing was going on, she knew there was no way there was actually anything dangerous up there, but… still. It was undeniable, the foreboding. The freaky feeling that if she opened that door, that everything would change and there would be no turning back.

But that was ridiculous. Absolutely ridiculous. Yeah, they didn't have a specifically defined relationship or anything, had just gotten drinks together a couple times, seen a film, the usual. But was she really the kind of girl who was going to be consumed with nervousness over the idea that a guy hadn't fallen for her? She certainly hadn't thought so.

She was just being stupid, and if there was anything she hated, hated more than awkwardly empty buildings, it was being stupid. So she opened the door, with a bit of flourish, and stood there. The hallway was exactly as she had left it, empty and a little bit creepy. Feeling, if possible, even more foolish, she hurried down the hallway, trying not to blush. Life-changing indeed.

"Got the thingie-" She was admittedly low on technical jargon "-that you asked for!" She announced cheerily, popping her head into the booth. "Where do you want it?"

It was only when she received no reply that she realized she couldn't see him, that the room seemed remarkably empty. Frowning, she looked about again, not immediately catching sight of him where she'd left him, poking out from under the projector. But the light was off as well, the room lit only by the dim redness of the equipment lights, by the ghostly reflections off the glass. It wasn't a particularly wide room, long and skinny, and as cluttered as it was with the miscellaneous castoff of the theatre industry, she _should_ have been able to see him…

Carefully this time, slowly, she started forward into the booth, turning so her back was against the wall. It was so dark in there, had been even with the lamp on, so dark she wondered if maybe he was just around the other side of the projector – but then he would have answered her, yes? But maybe he'd popped out to go grab a snack, or another technical object, or anything really – but no. It didn't feel right, him leaving and her not having seen it, as she hadn't been gone at all long. She would have run into him, surely.

Trying to see around a rack of shelving, she realized with a sudden shock that her right foot was sticking slightly to the floor. As her stomach dropped down right through, feeling a sudden panic rising, she looked down slowly, oh so slowly-

And found herself standing on a bit of candy. Feeling another rush of stupidity, of over thinking, she blushed, kneeling down to pick it off her shoe.

And that was when she saw it, small and nearly unobtrusive, a small wet spot. The stomach that had only recently settled back where it was supposed to rocketed back down again, leaving her slightly light-headed as she gingerly reached for the spot. It was tacky, wet and just slightly congealing, with just enough stick to be absolutely awful.

Bringing her fingers closer to her face, leaning towards the lamp, she saw that what she'd though (hoped, really) had been brown was really that sickeningly familiar red, that coppery metallic smell unmistakable. Swallowing hard, suddenly tasting what she'd eaten for lunch, she stood, backing up slowly. No no no no no…

Edging towards the door, trying to very hard not to breathe, not the move while moving as quickly as she could, wanting to run but too terrified, she'd just about touched the doorknob with her finger tips when it slammed shut, startling her into a scream.

Pressing up against the wall, she swallowed hard again, panting. What was that? How could it have closed on her if she was the only one in the room? Was she the only one in the room? She slid her eyes from the traitorous door, glanced at the empty room sideways. There was no way that there had been anyone (anything?) on this side that could have closed that door without her seeing it. But there wasn't anyone outside either, not unless they'd been absolutely silent and still in a corner somewhere-

She stopped that train of thought right there. Panicking would not do, would not provide any explanation or get her out of this. Taking a deep, slow breath, she let it out slowly, feeling her racing heartbeat come slightly more under control. Stepping forward purposefully, she reached for the door again, determined that she'd get out of here. It was obviously just the creepy air of the place, getting into her head; that had to be the reason, as anything else was just unthinkable.

But she froze again, when the silence was broken, not by her quiet breathing, but by something else – something, she couldn't believe it, didn't believe it, something _else_ breathing. It was unmistakable, that soft, whispering sound as air escaped lips, but that wasn't the worst of it, not at all. "Nick?" She called out, quietly, voice quavering to an unacceptable degree. Maybe this was just some sort of elaborate prank? He seemed like the type who might, but that, she couldn't say way, just felt wrong. This was bigger.

Then everything got worse, not that she would have said that it could. Because it (they? Whoever? Whatever?) responded to her, but so not in the way that she wanted. This wasn't a cheerful 'yes, it's me, lol', this wasn't a 'surprise!', it was… It was a cold, quiet sort of chuckling. Half a laugh, half an awful, awful laugh. And it was moving closer.

Yanking at the doorknob, she choked back a scream (why? She wasn't sure, it had to know where she was so it wasn't like she could hide, but still, she didn't want it to know where she was) when it didn't budge. Yanking on it again, panic rising faster than she could beat it back, she choked back another scream when nothing happened. The knob didn't turn, it wasn't like it was locked, it was just, frozen there, stuck, immovable.

Now she could hear the footsteps, slow and measured, coming closer. It was funny, how she was just as scared for when they would be close enough to her for her to see them. Somehow seeing whoever it was would make it that much worse, knowing whatever this thing was, and not being able to try to talk herself into thinking it was nothing. That this was still some sort of elaborate prank, that this was all a really, really realistic hallucination.

So preoccupied was she, with the footsteps and the chuckling and the door, and her nearly paralyzing dread, that she completely missed that buzzing sound from earlier. Not that it would have made any more sense, but it might have at least been a warning.

Frantically yanking at the door, desperate for movement, any movement that would mean that she might get out of this, whatever this was, (she didn't dare acknowledge the "alive" hanging off that statement) she really did scream when it suddenly snapped open, knocking her off balance. The footsteps paused for a moment, as though they, too, had been surprised by the opening of the door, but she didn't notice.

Mostly because there was someone in the door, someone who'd grabbed her arm and half-thrown her into the hallway. "Run!"


	2. 2: Introducing For The First Time

She didn't know what he was doing to the door, why he'd pulled it closed and was now fiddling with the lock, hadn't the faintest idea who he was, but something about the way he'd looked at her, however briefly, when he'd told her what to do, made it seem like listening him would be a very, very good idea.

But it was all too much, really all too much to have thrown at her at once. And so she fixated on the one thing that she could. "You can't lock it! Someone's still in there!" Funny, how when it had been down to it, that Nick might have been hurt had been the last thing on her mind, as she'd so desperately tried to believe that it was all some joke. But now, where it was light, she couldn't avoid the fact that whoever was in there, had gotten to him first.

And he turned to her, done with whatever he'd been doing (she had no idea and so paid no attention, overwhelmed as she was) to look at her again, deadly serious brown eyes catching hers and seeming to look through them. "I'm very sorry, but your friend is either dead or gone. Now, run!" There was something at the door, the side that had been locked in, a sense of pressure in the slight groaning of the hinges.

This time, she listened, turning and running for her life, running faster than she thought she ever had, wishing she could run away from everything, run to somewhere where whatever had happened hadn't. Run back in time.

They took the hallway and the stairs in silence, too preoccupied with the running to have anything to say (not that she'd know what to say – she needed a moment to process everything, and that wasn't about to happen any time soon). That was, it was silent until something upstairs (she had sinking feeling she knew) crashed, practically exploded. "What was-"

"The door," He finished, not needing her to finish her sentence. The footsteps hit the stairs above them, heavy and boot-like and determined to catch up with them. The laughing, at least, seemed to have stopped.

She swallowed hard again, as she heard it on the stairs above them. "What is going on?" It seemed too much to try and hope that this was all in her head. It was perhaps the only moment she'd ever wished for insanity.

"Hunter." He replied, as though it should make sense to her. There was another crash above them, a redoubling of those heavy footsteps. "A very angry one. I think you interrupted him."

"Well, he should post a sign or something," She replied, feeling an edge of hysteria building. "Can't expect people to leave you alone if you don't tell them you need privacy." She laughed a little, harshly, not really because anything was particularly funny.

That's when the implication of his words hit her, as they continued past the front doors towards the basement. "Wait, you think I interrupted him?" That made sense, if anything was making sense, what with the lack of blood and the lack of body parts or whatever. "So that means he's after Nick." That didn't make sense, not at all. "Wait, do you mean some sort of bounty hunter?" It was the only sort of hunter that made sense to be after a human being, and it would at least mean that something made sense.

He looked at her, made an equivocating sort of face, before nodding. "You could say that," He allowed, not about to go into a full explanation when they were still ostensibly running for their lives.

"Well, if he's still after us, that means he didn't get him," It was thinking aloud more than conversation, but at the moment it was the best that she was capable of. And this didn't make any sense, not at all. "How did he get out then? There aren't any other doors or windows, and I would have seen him if he'd run out-"

"Short-range teleport," He replied, as they dodged past some particularly frightening cleaning equipment towards the back door. "That's what I was tracking – he went out just as he went in."

She opened her mouth to say that a 'short range teleport' didn't exist, and if it did, it certainly wouldn't be the sort of thing a poor college kid would be playing with, but shut it. Accepting magically appearing bounty hunters but denying teleportation was silly – it explained more than it didn't, really.

She leaned against the wall, cheek to the cool wall as he fiddled with the doorknob again, locking it or whatever he was doing. That was when she caught the buzzing, that sound she'd half-heard while she'd been fetching the wrench (which, she was surprised enough to notice, she was still holding, clenched in her hand). The pieces were falling into place, as such as they were, however much she didn't like the picture they were painting.

Of course, even the grudging acceptance she was giving everything that had happened wasn't quite enough to cover whatever he'd stood up holding. Rectangular and metallic, it was covered in crazy sticking-out wires, and topped with the most ridiculous little satellite-type dish.

"_Really?_" She asked, the disbelief obvious on her face and in her tone. If she was going to fall into some science fiction story or whatever, couldn't it at least be one with a budget?

He looked offended, almost adorably so, at her diss-ing of his whatever it was. "I'll have you know that this-" He didn't get a chance to finish his sentence before it dinged, the little dish spinning about wildly before deciding on pointing around the other side of the building, towards the dorms "-goes ding when there's stuff," He finished. "Now stay out of that building, alright?" It was said with finality, as though that was it, before he turned to follow the little dinging dish-thing without any further explanation.

She stood there for a moment, before it really hit her that he'd just dismissed her. "Excuse me!" She shouted, running to catch up. "You do not get to leave me anywhere until you explain what the hell is going on!" Ten minutes ago she thought that what she'd wanted was not to know, to just have it pass out of her life so she could keep going. But with the opportunity to do that, she'd realized very quickly that she'd never be happy with that, never forgive herself for letting this go without knowing.

He looked at her as they went dashing off (did he always run this much, she wondered to herself, though it would certainly explain how he managed to fit into such a slim-cut suit) appraisingly, as though taking stock. As though this wasn't the first time he'd dropped so suddenly into someone's world, bringing with him world-shattering discovery. "I already-"

She cut him off, almost indignantly, blue eyes flashing. "That was not a proper explanation, thank you very much!" It was funny how much less scared she felt, the more energy she put into annoyance. Taking a breath to demand more information (not that she was sure she'd understand it), she realized that they were heading for Nick's dormitory building.

He looked at her, as though he was about to tell her that this was none of her business, that she didn't need to be a part of this. And she silenced him with her own look, panic from before dissolved in the running and the acceptance (because she had accepted, in the yards across the quad from the basement to the building, accepted and moved on). "How were you planning on getting in?" She whipped out her set of keys, the swipe cards that worked on every building on campus.

It probably wasn't fair, wasn't at all fair to go along, to demand some sort of explanation from Nick, but she felt that she was sort of entitled. She'd been about to ask him to drinks! She'd snogged him! And now it turns out he had some sort of short-range teleport system and has nasty reptilian trackers sent after him? That was not cool, not at all. She paused for a second, looking at the stranger she'd brought with her (funny how she hadn't really looked at him, hadn't registered more than details as they'd fled the booth, hadn't realized she knew nothing about him, hadn't realized how much she'd already decided she trusted him). "Who are you, anyway?"

He made eye contact again, those deadly serious eyes that seemed suddenly too old for his face meeting hers, before moving ahead of her, but with an unstated acceptance of her accompanying him. Had she known what he was thinking, she would have been right, as this hadn't been the first time he'd dropped in on someone's ordinary little life and brought with him the inexplicable. And, as much as she seemed your ordinary university student, t-shirt, jeans and sneakers, he had feeling that she wasn't quite about to let him brush her off. And he liked that. "I'm the Doctor."

Anyone else she would have demanded some sort of real name, wanted something beyond a title, but right now, with him, it seemed wrong. Seemed pointless, for lack of a better word. "Catherine Davies." She nodded at him, and had she not been dashing across the lawn with an admittedly good-looking stranger, about to confront a semi-sometimes-possible boyfriend about a teleporting bounty hunter, she would have realized exactly why she'd had that weird feeling by the door. Because she knew, even if she had no time to acknowledge it, that nothing was ever going to be quite the same again.


	3. 3: What'll Be Revealed Today

It was kind of funny how wrong it felt to be standing there, not really sure why she was doing it. What had made sense with the adrenaline flooding her system as they ran, what had seemed perfectly logical is ridiculously insane, seemed, well, crazy. Seemed too impossible to actually exist, seemed too far-out to trust herself with. To trust that she had any idea of what to do, to trust that she was making the right decision. That she was siding with the right person in all this.

So she knocked on his door, asked to be let in, because there was no other way, because she'd made a decision outside and she couldn't back out now. Or, maybe it was precisely because she could back out, that she could change her mind, even right now or ten minutes from now, and it would be over and she would be back in her normal life. And she couldn't let herself do that, couldn't bear the idea of letting go now and forever not knowing. And somehow, she couldn't say for sure or whether she was simply being crazy, she felt like the stranger knew, felt like he had an idea that she wasn't about to let herself back out, and that was why he'd let her take point, as it were, even if the idea of that mysterious, unflappable man knowing how very shaken up and confused she was would have killed her. Because the obvious weakness of indecision, that fluff, it was exactly the sort of thing that she abhorred.

Of course, this was all running through her head in an incoherent and tumbling rush in the approximately thirty seconds it took for him to respond to the knock and open the door, shattered by his voice as he exclaimed, so very surprised, so very casually, "Cat?" as if it wasn't a miracle of physics that he was even there ahead of her, like it wasn't supremely obvious that something, something crazy was going on.

"You left me!" She didn't shout, but it was a near thing, that what she had planned to wait to say bursting out of her in an edged snap, before she had any breath for pleasantries. Shoving through the door he seemed suddenly unwilling to let her through, she stared accusingly into his face, half-registering his barely concealed panic, the half-packed chaos as he'd been readying an escape.

"I-" He started, the lies as obvious as the freckles standing out against dead white.

"Don't." She finished, in that one word, giving up on everything that she'd thought they might have been, everything that she thought he was. Because lies weren't what she needed, or what she wanted, or what she could have handled. Turning away from him, not quite in disgust but with a shortness that belied how very done she was with him, done with the fact that he could have left her there knowing exactly what was coming after them, exactly what she would have run into – it was all there on his face, the way his eyes had darted as he'd tried to think of an explanation. And if he didn't already have one, than it wasn't one that she cared to hear, she turned towards the stranger. "Now what?" she asked, voice deceptively steady, arms crossed as she kept her back to Nick.

He didn't answer immediately, a pair of glasses sliding out of seemingly nowhere to perch on his nose, as he unceremoniously rifled through what was strewn about the bed, half-packed and chaotic. "It would have to be something particularly valuable and definitely stolen. We'd be talking something like-" Mid example he paused, having unearthed a particularly dingy little box, hardly something that someone who didn't know what they were looking for would have found. "This."

At her raised eyebrow, he continued, with an eye towards the flustered Nick, who didn't seem to be sure how exactly to take a possible/sometimes/maybe girlfriend and some random guy appearing and completely blowing his cover. "Late third great and bountiful human empire if I know what I'm talking about, which I can assure you I do. Conversion of energy streams, and from the markings-" He squinted through what, had Cat not been so terribly confused by this third-great-and-whatever, she would have registered were a particularly foxy pair of glasses "-I'm thinking a primarily nuclear based transmitter, with a primarily hydrogen based receptor?"

Nick, his complacency showing in how very shocked he was at being found out, simply nodded, goggling.

Cat opened her mouth to ask some sort of badly phrased question that would have only revealed how very, very lost she was, was rather thankfully interrupted by a more explanation-like explanation.

"Converts water into energy. Fuel."

She had a feeling that it wasn't quite as simple as that, but she let it go, happy enough to at least comprehend what was going on.

He continued, sliding the glasses off and into one of what seemed to be never-ending pockets. "You stole it," he concluded with a disapproving sort of air, gesturing towards the dingy little box he was still holding. "And as you couldn't possibly sell this sort of thing here, you have to either be very determined to scavenge the parts and clever enough to make it work, which judging from your rather clumsy little escape plan, you aren't, or you're lost, which would make a great deal more sense, even if it doesn't explain quite why you're still here. Unless…" He paused for a moment, ignoring Nick's rather indignant little start at being called less than clever, before reaching out and grabbing at his wrist, revealing what looked like a particularly elaborate wrist watch.

Cat blinked, unsure of why Nick still looked vaguely guilty and exposed, and to why The Doctor seemed to think that this was some sort of big reveal, but sure that it would all make sense in time, as much as anything else had.

"Fried the wrist unit, didn't you, with that big a jump?" Out had come that funny little buzzing flashlight, as though it would shed any more light on what was going on, "which was really rather stupid of you. You'd have been better off taking smaller steps here, but you didn't – I see now, you were trying to throw them off, try to lie low centuries early than was useful for you, and wait until they gave up the hunt. Now that's almost clever, but you should have known that they don't ever stop looking once you've taken something important from them." He was almost talking to himself, the way he phrased things, less like an actual conversation where others gave actual input. "Of course, now they've caught up to you and you don't have a way out, which makes thing that much more difficult."

"I'm not completely grounded," Nick protested, shaking him off and dropping his sleeve down to cover the 'wrist unit' again, as if it was sore, "and I've finally got the equipment set up to recalibrate, not that it's any business of yours." He turned towards Cat, as though finally remembering that she existed. "Where the hell did you find him, anyway?" he demanded, as though he had any right to know, any right to make demands in this situation. Like he _mattered_.

It bothered her, got under her skin the way he acted like the stranger, (the Doctor, she reminded herself, he did have a name, if an odd one) the one who'd actually taken the time to save her, rather than dump her behind like it didn't matter what happened to her, was the one who was intruding. It actually kind of hurt, in a way, not that she'd really had feelings that were all that strong for him, but the fact was she had trusted him in her way, in the way you'd trust anyone you were trying to get close to, and he obviously hadn't been worth it. As it were, she hardly recognized him, had never seen those charming eyes so hard. "_He_ was a decent enough person to actually come warn me about the crazy hunter tracker thing you have after you, unlike someone else here," She snarled, jabbing an accusatory finger in his general direction. "And you are going to fix this, do you hear me?" It was a sort of naiveté, really, to assume that this was something that could be fixed, that her world could be sealed back up and made right again, foundation back in place. That things would make sense again.

"I'm going to get the hell out of here, do you hear _me_?" One didn't become even a moderately successful rouge element without nerves, without balls, and that was one thing he had in spades. A certain amount of callousness never hurt either. "And there's nothing you can do about it." He knew perfectly well, better than she did at least, what happened when hunters missed their quarry, and frankly my dear, he didn't give a damn.

She opened her mouth to respond just as angrily, the Doctor all but forgotten, when she was so rudely interrupted by someone suddenly standing in the doorway. There wasn't any fanfare or wind or anything really, to herald his arrival, but for his slow, drawling voice that chilled her up and down in exactly the way that awful chuckling had.

"Why, hello there." It was funny in a particularly sick way how menacing those really rather innocuous words were. What was funnier, that is, if anything at the moment was really funny, was the immediate chaos his appearance threw the room into.

Nick had gone literally dead white, blanching the point where any impartial observer might have been worried about his health, looking, oddly enough, far more like a panicked university student caught at something he shouldn't than any self-styled criminal element. Cat had had an almost visceral reaction to the voice, that dreadful voice, along with a helping dose of fear of what she didn't understand. Only the Doctor seemed not to react as violently, if anything, he seemed to perk up, in a way, as though it was the manic dashing about and the danger that he thrived on, rather than the quiet muddling through bits.

"I've really got to thank you, really," the voice continued, as he so very lazily rolled up the sleeves of an anachronistically old military-style jacket, turning almost frighteningly light eyes towards Cat and the Doctor. "Took me almost four months to cross all the time tracks he'd jumped, and look! You lead me right to him." The smile (if anything quite as cold as that could be called a smile) that unfolded was just as lazy and casually menacing as the voice. "That is, unless I figure that you've been helping him hide. Then I might have to-"

She never did quite figure out what it is that he was going to do to her, as Nick made a sudden movement to her side, distracting her. She hadn't understood most of the discussion concerning the wrist unit, but she'd managed to glean that it was directly related to the 'short range teleportation', and the large button-esque apparatus had seemed, well, like it was most likely a button. So when she saw him reach for it, especially with that almost manic purpose in his eyes, she could grasp what he was trying to do.

"Oh, hell no," was the only thing that ran through her head, or would have, had she not been flinging herself roughly at him, grabbing a hold of his arm before he'd managed to activate the thing. Dimly, she was aware of a hand just managing to grab at her shoulder, before everything dissolved.


	4. 4: Crime at the Time

A hand gently touched her wrist, obviously checking for a pulse, jolting her back into reality.

"Ugh." It wasn't particularly coherent, but she wasn't exactly feeling up to anything more. It seemed enough for the hand (she hadn't opened her eyes yet), giving her a chance to take stock of the situation. She was vaguely aware of lying on a floor, and a cold one at that, but mostly she was preoccupied with fighting down the waves of nausea that had accompanied their abrupt departure.

Opening her eyes and sitting up, she found herself in one of the disused chemistry labs, or at least what she had assumed was a disused lab until she caught the rather intricate pile of equipment in the far corner, though she would have been hard pressed to identify any of it (she was too far to tell, but the truth was that it wasn't of her time and so she was excused, but that wouldn't hit her for a bit).

Those intensely dark eyes filled her vision as the Doctor bent down to check her vitals, a cool hand at her temple. "Rapid displacement sickness," he clarified, as if she really needed to know the obvious. "Common with faulty equipment. You'll be fine in a moment."

Wobbly, she rose to her feet, stomach somewhat back under control. Glancing about the room, she noticed Nick standing against the back wall, by some assortment of equipment, holding his inner forearm as though it hurt. Deciding that it served him right, she ignored him.

Making it over to the windows, she looked out across the campus as if trying to see if they'd been followed. So it was her who saw it first, the dim red glow about one of the buildings, something she leaned forward to investigate a little clearer when – _whump_. It was the sort of sound that she felt, even as much as she heard it, as the building burst into flame. It wasn't normal fire, the sort that started at a recognizable point and then spread from that at a predetermined rate. No, this was far too immediate, a conflagration leaping from window to window and covering far too much of the building too fast – it took her an eternity of barely a second before she made out that it was the building they just left, where Nick had lived. That there had been music playing, talking, people inside didn't hit for another of those eternal seconds, not until the screaming started.

It was like she was suddenly so very far away, only dimly understanding what was happening. From a great distance, she felt a hand on her shoulder, as reassuring as anything could really be in a situation such as this. Turning towards him, not really sure what exactly what was going on (more because she couldn't bear to acknowledge it, hoping in some naïve part of her that if she didn't believe it happened that it wouldn't have), she blinked through blurry eyes, refusing to accept it enough to cry. "There were people inside," She murmured, half a whisper, voice hoarse and catching.

Suddenly, in that distant part of her that was still functioning on another plane, she understood why his eyes had seemed so old, seeing years she couldn't comprehend in the way that he looked at her, in the way he understood exactly how she felt at the moment. And it hurt, it hurt almost more at that moment, when she couldn't deny what was reflected back in his face.

Turning deliberately away, she swallowed hard, ignoring the tears that had already started their way down her face. There wasn't anything she could do about that and it, well, it couldn't help really, but it was something. But there was something she could do-

"You." The words didn't snap out of her so much as she flung them, barbed like arrows, towards him in that corner there, cowering. "This. Is. _Your_. Fault." Divorced from her feet, she didn't realize she'd moved forward until she was nearly on him, a sudden flash of temper trying to convert the sorrow into something she could manage.

He didn't seem to really react, letting her come at him, letting her reach out (she hadn't decided what she was going to do, was flying by impulse, might have grabbed him, or punched him, or simply hung on and dragged him down to meet her)-

It was like the world had moved faster than she could process and she found herself half-sitting on the floor, locked in something akin to a headlock, the scalpel she hadn't seen pressed far closer to her carotid than she would have chosen.

There was something desperate in Nick's eye, something she hadn't quite registered, something that might have given her a clue about how serious he was about living through this. "Sorry, Cat," He whispered, as though there was a way to apologize for all that had happened, for shattering the world she'd thought she'd lived in. "This wasn't supposed to work out this way," His voice was rough and edged, thick with panic and a kind of primal determination, "but I'm going to get through this." He turned more towards the Doctor this time, done with her as anything more than a pawn in his own escape. "I need you to fix this," he gestured with his free hand, the one with the faulty unit, "or I _will_ kill her." It was a bit of a gamble, really, betting that this mysterious stranger would give a rat's ass about her life, but he could infer from the way he'd looked out the window (he, himself, couldn't bear to, couldn't do more than hear the sound and assume) that this stranger was the sort of person who was into the sanctity of life.

The Doctor glanced to Cat first, mentally calculating faster than they could have quite understood, trying to figure a better way out of this. He'd been following the signals to try and prevent something like this, to intervene and protect a planet and race he'd become really rather fond of. No one had been supposed to die, that was the way that things worked, the way that things were supposed to be. And he was going to do everything to keep any one else from being hurt. Nodding his acquiescence to the demand, he stepped carefully forward, drawing the screwdriver from one of his terribly voluminous pockets, focusing his attention on the wrist unit.

"Now, I am going to be very, very calm," He commented as he did so, a certain amount of iron in his voice, or at least as much as he could afford with such a precarious sort of situation. "but that is only because this is so very delicate. But you are going to let her go," He continued, lower still, those so terribly intense eyes of his locked on Nick's wavering ones, "this isn't her fight."

Nick couldn't sustain the gaze, shifting away. Not guiltily, not exactly, but he just couldn't look him in the face.

Roughly eye level with his thigh, Cat found herself suddenly distracted by the fact that he was wearing a pair of battered converse sneakers with his suit. It was the sort of thing that jumped out at her, hilarious only in the context of the emotional strain – but she did contain herself, swallowing the outburst, too afraid to move against the razor.

"What were you trying to do?" The Doctor's voice was low and calm, more through force of will (and if there was one thing he had, it was force of will) than any reflection of his actual feelings. This idiot (it was the strongest word he was willing to use in his mental narrative, not about to get himself any more worked up than he already was and disrupt the delicate balance of the current situation) was nearly as responsible for all that had happened, and he really didn't want to help him run off and start the cycle somewhere else. "Re-fusing the calibration matrix?"

"That was the idea, yeah," Nick gestured towards the various stacks of equipment behind him. "I had to jury rig most of it, didn't have any of the real supplies-" He flinched suddenly, as though whatever the Doctor was doing with his- "is that a sonic model?" he asked, sounding almost impressed "I've never seen a screwdriver version" -had hurt.

The Doctor nodded absently, those glasses that came from seemingly nowhere back on his nose. "I can see what you did here, yes," he murmured more to himself than to anyone else, peering with actual interest at the wrist unit. Straightening, he turned to more directly address Nick. "You fused the calibration matrix alright. Fused the energy components as well." He didn't look happy, exactly, but the sense of almost satisfaction at this bit of almost poetic justice was clear enough on his face.

"Yeah?" Intent on what the Doctor was saying, Nick loosened the hold he had on Cat just enough-

She dropped and rolled, scrambling away less than gracefully, more interested in not being hurt than how she was escaping.

"You bonded the matrixes alright, bonded them to you." The Doctor finished gravely, eyes on Nick's. "That jump you took fried the energy cells completely. In your attempts to re-calibrate, you managed to hook them up to a new energy source – you. And I can't fix it, not without killing you."

"No." He was white, whiter than any human had a right to be and still be conscious, white with the fact that this was game over. "No. No." Repeating the word as though it make it true, he stumbled back, eyes frantic, searching for a way out. "No." Looking like he might throw up, he hit the activation thing again. This time, his image flickered for the briefest moment, as though there were momentarily two of him, before he was gone.

"What-" Cat started, a little confused as to why they were going to let him go this time.

"He can't go far, not in that state." The Doctor explained, though that sense of grave satisfaction still apparent. He turned to Cat; hand out to help her to her feet. "Which is good, because he's missing something." From another of those bottomless pockets he pulled out the little unobtrusive looking box.

She laughed once, not because it was funny, really, but because of how small it was in his hand for having caused so very much pain. "So now what do we do?" She certainly wasn't about to let either Nick or that hunter get away with this, definitely not.

He looked her over again, not like that, but appraisingly, as though reevaluating whatever judgments he'd made about her before – he liked that she hadn't given up, as he would have let her walk here, let her choose to go join the students massed outside by the sirens and flashing lights. "Now? We make a plan."


	5. 5: Alone in the Chain

It really wasn't the sort of place that she wanted to have this sort of showdown, if you wanted to call it that, so terribly high up. But she'd known to check the roof of the library; knew which staircase had the faulty lock and could be convinced to let them through, as she'd gone there with him, had a picnic watching the stars and feeling a little daring. It was so different now, knowing who he was now, making it hard not to look on her earlier giddy self as so terribly naïve. And the same time, it was hard not to envy the Cat that hadn't been thinking of anything more than whether she wanted to kiss him yet, hadn't been worried about dying because she'd gotten caught up in some stupid space opera.

It had just about gotten dark by the time they'd made it all the way up the steps, just dark enough to make the emergency lights all the more obvious. She knew she should be down there, should be catalogued and made note of, shuffled off to some sympathetic volunteer to cry a little, then sent to maybe plan a memorial service or two, before moving on with her life. It was kind of freaky really, seeing what would have been the normal course of her life, if she just hadn't agreed to sit in with him to fix the projector. Knowing how such a tiny little decision had changed absolutely everything-

"Are you sure about this?" The Doctor asked, quietly but with a steady intensity. He hadn't really wanted to let her to do this, would have preferred not to have her involved with the stage of operations at all, really didn't want to risk another death tonight. But she hadn't let him, and he couldn't deny that he liked that, had a certain amount of respect for those who refused to give up, however terrified they might be.

Because she was terrified, was taking deep breaths as quietly as she could to steady her nerves. The adrenaline was almost too much, the way it was on the first hill of a roller coaster – the anticipation compounding until she felt like she was about to run out of air. Nodding at him, not sure she wanted to speak, she swallowed, gaze as deadly serious as his own. Again, she had that terrifyingly easy path out, had the ability to just walk away, lie down and cry. Give up. But she couldn't, just couldn't- Taking that final deep breath, she nodded again, and gathering what courage she could find, she shoved through the doors and out onto [roof/room].

Nick, grey-faced with the sweat standing out on his brow, looked startled to see her. He was clutching at his arm, a dark splotch growing against the fabric of his sleeve, a cornered desperation in his eyes. "Cat?" He whispered, confused. Why had she followed him here? What was she playing at? Why wouldn't she just leave him alone-

"There you are!" Her voice was unnecessarily loud, pitched too high in her stress. As much as she knew what role she had to play the words came easy, almost too easily, too much of herself in her act. "Cowering in a corner." There was disgust in her voice, nothing she had to pretend. "Planning on running away again, are you? Running off and leaving everyone else to die?"

"Cat, please," It was pathetic, really, the terror in his eyes as he tried to plead with her. Tried to make her care more about his life than he ever had about hers.

"No. I'm done with you." She snapped, reacting against the pity she felt coiling its way through her. She knew he was almost as responsible for what had happened as the hunter had been, had been used as just another pawn in his great escape. But she couldn't help but feel the nausea building as she saw him so broken, so defeated and wriggling, as she knew what she was doing. Deliberately blowing his cover.

"Well, it's too bad I'm not done with you then." It was that chillingly jovial voice.

Whipping around to stare at him, Cat tried to slow the sudden panicked beating of her heat. She knew that he was coming, had done her best to draw him out – there had been some long and involved explanation of the Doctor's where she'd understood one word in ten, but anyway, she'd known that the hunter would try and use them to find Nick. And here she'd done precisely that, but wouldn't have time to fight back that bitter guilt until later.

"For someone who's uninvolved, you really do pop up everywhere, don't you?" He continued, voice languid and panther-like as he surveyed Cat, momentarily interested. "It makes me wonder how involved in all this you really are." She was a shiny new mouse to a cat that's gotten a little bored of his old one, nothing more.

"I haven't helped him, if that's what you mean." She could barely get the words out, shrinking back, but the silence felt too much like surrender.

"He did leave you for me," He allowed, the touch of the Cheshire in his grin. "Not that it would have bought him any real time," He seemed slightly disappointed, as though whatever brief period of time he might have spent with her would have at least been enjoyable. For him. "However you're involved, I think that it's about time that I did something about you. Can't have you interfering any further now, can we?" He'd taken in Nick's state fairly quickly, and saw no flight risk there. Not from the roof.

"You're a little bit late there, aren't you?" The Doctor's tone was a good imitation of the careless menace tossed about by the Hunter, though something in the line of his mouth and the scorching depths of his eyes belayed his true feelings. It hadn't taken him long to set off the fire alarm the floor below them, to make sure that the empty building really was empty. As much as he doubted that anyone could have been deep enough in their studies to ignore the sirens and flashing lights, it was still something he had to see to.

If he hadn't been quite so confident in their antagonist's need to draw out the moment he wouldn't have let her do it, would have found another way. But that was done and they were going to finish this, one way or another.

"I wouldn't say that," Attention diverted again, he turned on the Doctor, obviously seeing him as a more interesting opponent than a coed. The cat with an even shinier new mouse.

"No, I really think you are." The Doctor reached through those bottomless pockets of his, pulled out that silly little battered box. "Because I have something you need." He waited a moment for everyone to react to his reveal, partially because it was necessary and partially for effect. "See, I know how your warrants work. You've got to bring him back for trial if you recover what he stole, don't you?" Not that trials in a place that would employ one such as the Hunter would be at all any more pleasant. "Made things easier for you when he'd hidden it, didn't it? But, here you are." He spun it a little; let it catch what light there was.

"The flaw in your plan being that that's really boring," The Hunter protested, that freezing drawl sounding almost put-out. "So I don't really think that I want to take you up on that," He continued, mulling over whether or not he felt like obeying the laws that ostensibly governed his profession. Generally, they were only enforced on-planet and in-time, which this was neither. And he really had put a little too much effort into finding him to give up without taking any satisfaction out of it-

"No. No. No-" Nick seemed stuck on a loop, suddenly desperate. He certainly didn't want to die here, didn't want to face whatever would be cooked up by the man (if you could call him that) who would burn innocent students alive, but he didn't really want to face trial either – he knew what that would mean, knew exactly what would meet him if he returned. It was the desperation of a trapped animal that was willing to chew off its own foot to survive, the primal instincts alone. Frantic, he tried to think of something, anything, any way out of this- H seized on the one thing that had worked for him so far. Lunging, he grabbed at Cat, surprising her. "I'll take her with me," He threatened the Doctor, not thinking this through at all, flying blind.

But he'd forgotten that he wasn't armed this time, forgotten the exhaustion that had been eating at him and the stabbing pains in his arm. She'd been surprised alright, hadn't thought that he was still capable of moving that fast. But this time she could fight, could do something concrete about the situation. She threw her head back, snapped his nose, throwing the two of them off balance but half-shaking him off her.

But she'd forgotten something as well, something a little bit more important than what he'd forgotten. Because she'd gotten where they were, how high up the little roof was, and how close to the edge they had been. And in knocking into him she'd shoved him that much closer, without any sure footing. Still entangled, teetering, holding on that much harder, he took one small step too far – and dragged her off with him.

The Doctor, however fast his reflexes were (and, if he had a chance, he could have told you in very great detail exactly how fast they were, and exactly which species he considered himself superior to) hadn't had a chance to more than blink before the image of the two of them began rapidly flickering in and out as they fell, dancing like a particularly faulty television transmission, before sputtering out.

She barely had time to scream, hadn't really realized what had happened until she found herself on the ground, half on top of him. She knew some weird stuff had gone down today, and that the terminal velocity of a human body was really rather fast, but she knew that it certainly wasn't that fast, and that she really, really shouldn't be alive. Looking down, she realized that the cold wetness at her hand was seeping up her arm, and that it was obviously, even in the half-light, that unmistakable sick redness.

Scrambling off, scrambling to her feet, she tried to fight down the waves of nausea. It hadn't been her blood, and it hadn't been cold. Looking away, she firmly ignored the (she couldn't think the word body, couldn't pronounce the word in her own head without losing it), pressing her clean hand to her face. It was a testament to how much she'd been through, how very terrifying her day had been, that she didn't even notice the gradual heat to her side as the library began to smolder.

So she didn't see the Doctor round the corner and run towards her, obviously relieved to see them, and her alive. "Are you alright?" He asked, with those eyes too focused, too intense on hers.

"Is he-" She could barely get the words out, so it was good that his answer was so obvious on his face, whatever he'd had to do written in those eyes that were too strong, too old, too everything for her right now. With the sense of sudden relief came a flood of emotion she'd only been able to repress as long as she'd had some other consuming mission, and she sank to her knees, wracking sobs overwhelming what strength she'd had left. "It's not my blood," was all she could get out between the tears, face in her hands. She hadn't loved him, not in any meaningful way, and had you asked her not fifteen minutes ago, she probably would have told you that she could have killed him herself. But not now, not when she could still see that glassy, absent stare whenever she closed her eyes. However intentional his dragging her off that building had been, how accidentally he'd hit that button that last fatal time, it had still saved her. And in being there, so entangled with him, taking that much more energy to transport that little bit of distance, that little bit of time, she strongly suspected she'd killed him.


	6. 6: Into The Great Unknown

It hadn't taken long to explain everything to the emergency personnel, or at least, not nearly long enough to make her feel any better. They'd taken her bloody clothes, lent her a sweatshirt twelve sizes too big and smelling strongly of bleach, handed her a box of tissues, and unceremoniously kicked her out of the makeshift office. She felt like it should have been a bigger deal, been something investigated and looked into, even if that meant the impossible being found out. But, funnily enough, what had been the culmination and climax of her own private story hadn't been on anyone else's radar.

The worst part had been calling her parents. It had been (mercifully) after she'd been sat down and checked off and debriefed, but the official story (source of the explosion under investigation, preliminary data indicating a faulty gas line) didn't taste any better with the backing of the men in uniform.

She knew she couldn't tell them the truth, couldn't sit there and cry herself out over the phone with them. And that hurt, or would have if she hadn't been so terribly numb. They hadn't been very pleased when she'd turned down their offer of a ticket on the first train back, to sit out the rest of the semester and winter break at home until the university reopened at home, in comfort.

But she couldn't commit to it, needed the time alone – and she was alone, at the moment. The Doctor, her mysterious stranger, had melted away at the first sign of the emergency personnel, not seeming to be interested in giving any account of his presence on campus. He'd sent her a meaningful sort of look, as if to say that he'd see her again, but she didn't know if he would – or if he did, what she would say. What more was there? He'd shown up and saved her, perhaps more than once, but now that it was over, what place did he have in her life?

What place did she have in her own life now? The university, which had once seemed so vast, with the opportunities to be anyone she wanted wherever she chose to go; was suddenly too small, cramping around her.

Discharged from the medical tent when they'd been sure she was unhurt (physically at least), avoiding the busses set up to take them to somewhere safe for the night (now that she knew what was out there, would she ever feel safe?) she wandered away from the lights and sympathetic faces, making her way down to the building that had housed the theatre she'd been about to show a movie on a million years ago. It hadn't played any part in this official story, and so was as empty as she had thought it earlier.

Her back to the wall, comfortingly solid, she sat on the front steps to try and figure something, anything out. It was just all too much, she'd felt too many things within the last few hours, and had honestly reached her limit. There was nothing more to feel. Distracted by the simple act of breathing, the steady beat of her heart, she couldn't have told you if she'd been sitting there for one moment or millions.

"How was it?" A familiar voice interrupted, just the right amount of sympathy and understanding in those three little words.

She looked up, up from the battered sneakers, across the expanse of pin striping to those old, old eyes. "Not too bad. They're saying it was a faulty gas line." She shrugged, twitched the corner of her mouth. "Not really anything I could say to that."

"What are you going to do?" He seemed, for a moment, genuinely interested in how she chose to pick the pieces back up, in how she was about to cope. She looked emotionally battered, drawn and quartered. But there wasn't anything he could do for that, other than hope she caught the empathy in his eyes. He'd done this, shattered someone's world, so many times…

"I dunno. Probably go back home. I mean, they aren't going to reopen for a while or anything," She shrugged again. It wasn't like the intricacies of her own internal discussion would actually matter any to him. She wondered what he did, when he wasn't blown in on the wind into someone's life, bringing with him the chaos of understanding. When he wasn't changing everything.

He hadn't made up his mind about this, not even as he'd taken a moment to watch her there, tear-stained and lost, pressed up against an empty building. But there was something in the way she told him that she was simply going to float back into her normal life, however hard she might fit it to fit back in, that sealed it for him. She'd been good, she really had, game through something that he wouldn't have wished on anyone, brought to too many. "You could come with me," He offered, so casual. As though it was nothing, when really, it was just about the most important thing he could ever offer. A chance to travel to see the universe, where it wasn't always like this, where not everyone had to die. Where it was so very often beautiful.

"Travel where?" She accepted the hand he'd held out to help her up, a little bit confused by just what he was offering, and a whole lot intrigued in spite of herself. It was too much to hope, really, that she could go somewhere grand and lovely, or just warm and soft, after all this.

"Anywhere you wanted to go," He explained, with just enough of a sparkle, a certain light in his eyes she hadn't seen yet. "Any where and any when in the whole universe."

She paused for a moment, hardly daring to breathe. The walls that had been closing in, cramping up around a world that had grown smaller by the moment were suddenly flung wide again with possibility, almost too much possibility for any one moment. "Well," She looked around, took in the fire crews still tackling the residual flames, the news vans surrounding the exits, and the gaping holes where buildings had been, "somehow, I don't think there's going to be class tomorrow."

"Is that a yes?" He looked for clarification, trying not to grin until she did. It felt a little obscene, really, smiling after the wringer they'd been put through. But here it was, a chance for something light, and he couldn't help himself.

She could only nod, the excitement at the fact that what he was offering was _really_ real building to a fever pitch, face breaking into the first smile he'd seen from her. It was like the first bite of real food after having been sick, the flavors were over exaggerated and intense, and for a brief second, threatened to overwhelm.

"Brilliant!" It was contagious, it really was, this thrill and this new life, however situated it was on the charred remains of the old. He took her by the arm, with an air of almost comical ceremony. "To anywhere and everywhere."

She almost laughed, but that would have been just too much. She didn't quite believe him yet, however much she would have liked to, whatever impossible she had seen that day – it would have been just too much. But she loved the ring of possibility in his words all the same. "To anywhere and everywhere."

--

**AN: Whew! I actually finished Episode One! Now, onto Episode Two.**

**A Sneak Peak: **

_Cat peered at the ornate clock, enjoying the intricate swirling of the craftsmanship. It was so delicate, really, for something that was making such a loud ticking sound- She paused for a moment, watching the hands. They weren't moving; the clock didn't seem to be wound. "Do you hear that?" She asked, intrigued._

_The Doctor did not seem nearly as unperturbed as she was. Rather, he seemed momentarily alarmed. "Yes, I've heard that sound before." He paused, glasses disappearing as quickly as they had appeared. "Its clockwork."_


End file.
